Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athlete Courtney Atkinson has claimed his second consecutive silver in the third race of the Triathlon ITU World Championship Series in Madrid on 6 June.

Atkinson finished second, recording a time of 1 hour 52 minutes and 51 seconds, just 10 seconds behind the winner of the race, Great Britain’s Alistair Brownlee, the reigning world champion.

They ran shoulder-to shoulder for most of the final 10 kilometre run leg with Brownlee sprinting away and cruising to victory in the final straight.

Switzerland’s Sven Reiderer finished in third place.

‘It was a tough day because for some reason my swim was really off,’ Atkinson said.

‘I didn’t feel great at various stages of each leg but the good thing is I put myself in the right position at important stages and set myself up for the run which has been going so well for me lately.’

It was Brownlee’s first race in this series after recovering from pelvis stress fracture.

In other results for AIS athletes, James Seear and Brendan Sexton finished in 26th place and 42nd place respectively. 

AIS team-mate Felicity Sheedy-Ryan finished in 36th place in the women’s race.

Emma Moffatt, Emma Snowsill and Brad Kahlefeldt did not compete in the Madrid race.

AIS athletes are well placed in the overall points standing of the 7 races series.

In the men’s series, Courtney Atkinson is the leading Australian in third place overall on 1480 points, followed by Brad Kahlefeldt (1052) in 7th place. 

In the women’s series, Emma Moffatt remains in contention on 1370 points, ahead of AIS team-mate Emma Snowsill in 18th place (572). 

AIS athletes will be looking to improve their rankings in the next rounds of the triathlon world championship series in Hamburg (17–18 July), London (24–25 July), Kitzbuhel (14–15 August), culminating in the final in Budapest (8–12 September).